


Phantom Limb

by spookyshai



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Billy Hargrove Redemption, Billy Survived Season 3, Canon Continuation, De-powered Eleven, F/M, Pre-Relationship, Psychic Bond
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-03
Updated: 2020-02-04
Packaged: 2021-02-20 20:56:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,695
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22549627
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spookyshai/pseuds/spookyshai
Summary: Months after the move from Hawkins, Jane Byers starts feeling the presence of some remnant of her powers, but things don't go the way she expects.This fic is basically a side project while I focus on my larger WIP, so updates will not be regular. Beta read by the wonderful bundyshoes.
Relationships: Eleven | Jane Hopper & Billy Hargrove, Eleven | Jane Hopper & Kali Prasad, Eleven | Jane Hopper/Billy Hargrove, Jonathan Byers & Eleven | Jane Hopper, Will Byers & Eleven | Jane Hopper
Comments: 10
Kudos: 27





	1. Chapter 1

“I don’t know. I’m sure the piece will be fine without it, but a balanced presentation of the issue is pretty important, right?”

Jane finishes pulling up the weed she’s been digging at and takes a breath, resting gloved hands on her damp, grass-stained knees. She can hear Jonathan just inside, still on the phone with Nancy. Either the conversation is going to end in less than five minutes, or they’re going to get into one of their minor but lengthy spats and it’ll last at least another twenty while they argue things out and then make up.

“No, I know you’re – Listen, I’m not trying to tell you how to do your job,” Jonathan says patiently, then sighs. “I’m just trying to help, Nance,” he adds more softly. Jane realizes she was straining to hear him and abruptly picks her dandelion weeder back up, busily targeting a spiky-leafed monstrosity attempting to starve her geraniums.

“Yeah, well… you know _I_ love your writing no matter what you do with it. You’ve gotta make your own decisions, but I think you already know you want to pull in something about the ethics committee having concerns. I mean, you called me basically the minute you heard about it.” His voice is easier now, lighter. Affectionate. So no fight, then.

The dandelion is being stubborn, coming up in pieces. Jane bites her lip and scowls a little at the fragmented taproot still half-buried in the dirt, resisting the urge to wipe sweat off her face; she doesn’t really want to go in for dinner with her forehead covered in dirt. It isn’t even hot out; maybe a little warm for a March evening in Ohio, but she’s been outside working a long time, and she had to haul the large, geriatric lawnmower back into the garage by herself when Jonathan ran in to grab the phone forty-five minutes ago. They’re saying their _i-love-you_ s now, so it shouldn’t be long. She tenses.

“Hey, El- uh, Jane? You want to use the phone?” he calls outside, finally, and Jane pauses a moment – still sweating – before turning around, feigning thought, and shaking her head at him.

“Not today,” she says back, brandishing the weeder at him meaningfully. Jonathan sees right through her, she knows it, but he just gives her a brief scrutinizing look before muttering an excuse to Nancy and hanging up the phone. Jane, giving the lie to her extremely half-baked cop-out, gathers up her dispossessed weeds and heads for the garage to put away the gloves and tools.

“Hey,” Jonathan calls again, and she glances over her shoulder at him as she opens the garage door, trying to look industrious. He jogs over to her, glancing around before continuing in an undertone. “It’s been like two months, Jane. He knows something’s up, okay? Nancy keeps asking me why you’re never the one to pick up the phone.”

“Nothing’s up,” Jane says steadily, trying not to feel like she’s reciting a script. “I’ve just been really busy with school and settling in and all, and I needed a break, and it just got away from me. I’ll call him soon.” Jonathan stares at her, and she huffs. “Would it make you feel better if I promised?”

He presses his lips together, and she can tell he wants to say _friends don’t lie,_ but he knows better than to quote that back to her by now. “I’m not the one you need to…” he begins, then stops, and is quiet for a long moment. Jane shreds a dandelion leaf and drops the pieces on the pavement, avoiding his eyes. “Well, hey, you can talk to me about whatever you need,” he says at last. “You can talk to any of us.”

She nods, pushing aside a little twinge of guilt. “I know. Thanks, Jonathan.”

He nods back, reminds her that dinner’s in a few, then heads back into the house. Jane opens up the garage and then takes a breath, letting her eyes close, focusing on the cool, dry air and the oddly comforting musty smell. Everything is fine. Everything is normal. She will call Mike soon – and Max, she can’t forget to call Max too – and say she’s sorry for going radio silent and everything will get patched up. Soon.

Just not today.

Her eyes open again and focus on a stray leaf clinging to the shelf, brown and crusty and curled. How long it’s been there is impossible to guess. A fleeting thought enters Jane’s mind, and she finds herself concentrating on it, reaching for the familiar feeling of power, that old instinctual awareness of the shapes and densities of things and _just_ how much force it would take to move them, the old burn and ache in her skull that would radiate out into her surroundings and became a roaring current of energy, of pure, realized will _…_

She almost wishes it was a windy day, just so a gust could blow into the garage and she could at least _pretend_ the leaf was moving like it was supposed to. But it just stays stuck, mocking her, and Jane nearly blacks out for a second with how hard she was staring at it. A chill runs down her spine, and she has to take a moment to recover. _Breathe, Jane. Breathe,_ and the rest of the pattern follows naturally, without her really trying to think of it – _Sunflower. Three to the right, four to the left. 450. Rainbow._ She moves to put the tools away.

It barely occurs to her to wonder anymore why she always seems to think of her mother at random times, or why that thought so often comes intertwined with Terry’s sickening fugue-state mantra. She supposes it has something to do with having experienced the loop firsthand, through Terry’s eyes. This is how she knows her mother. The words always present themselves to her as if pre-formed, as if she’s not really thinking them, just observing them like writing on a wall. She doesn’t remember anymore if that’s how they felt to Terry, probably because she tried very hard afterward to forget the whole experience.

Jane takes another breath and shakes her head at herself. She’s starting to question why she even still tries to use her powers, these days. It’s been more than half a year since they went dormant, and she’s doing just fine without them anyway.

“ _Jane?_ ” she hears from the house. Joyce is probably waiting to eat dinner until everyone is there.

Jane steps back outside and closes up the garage. 

~+~

The atmosphere at the table is a little awkward as Jane quietly asks Will to pass the salt. Jonathan is too tactful to have mentioned her reluctance to talk to Mike to Joyce and Will, but she knows for sure that Will has noticed, and Joyce is sensitive enough to pick up the mild note of tension and intuit that something’s up. _Nothing_ is up, Jane insists to herself, ignoring that she can’t really explain even to herself why it’s been weeks since she’s spoken to Mike – or anyone in Hawkins – if nothing is up.

She focuses on eating her over-salted potatoes.

“So, um,” begins Joyce in a chipper but slightly tentative tone, “did everybody finish all their homework for the weekend?”

“Yes,” Jane pipes up immediately, followed by Will, and a little less enthusiastically by Jonathan, who probably still has some reading to do or something before class tomorrow. Jane remembers hearing about homework from Dustin back in the early days after her escape from the lab; she’d thought the whole idea was stupid, partially influenced by his clear opinion in that direction. Now, though, she finds herself combing through and finishing her assignments every day with a sense of calm and deep satisfaction. Her new adoptive siblings aren’t really complainers, as a rule, but she can tell they don’t feel the same way about it.

Jane can’t help it; she loves school.

In the fall after the move, after Jonathan and Joyce rigorously tutored her through elementary and middle school math (easy), the scientific method (easy), and some introductory reading and composition (harder, but she got better with work), Mike, Dustin, Lucas and Max called a week or so before she started school to coach her through the etiquette and conventions they thought she needed to know. Simple things, but things that still had to be learned. _Look around the school before you start classes so you know where you’re going. Carry your schedule with you until you memorize it. Locker combos are right, left, right. Sit in the same seat every day, probably near the front but not too near unless the teacher is really nice. Raise your hand when you have something to say. Don’t talk in class unless you’re answering a question or there’s group discussion. Ask first if you have to leave class. Stay in the building until the school day’s out, unless you want to get in trouble_ (Max scoffed at this one). The first few days were unpleasant, full of missteps and anxiety, but Jane got the hang of things quickly. Everyone here knows her as Jane Byers, regular girl who just moved with her family from Indiana, who has curly brown hair and no scary powers. She doesn’t answer every question that she knows the answer to anymore, only picking the ones she really wants to talk about. She mostly keeps to herself, sitting with a few acquaintances at lunch and then walking home with Jonathan while Will stays for A/V club, and staying out of the usual high school dramas. It’s… peaceful. Simple. Interesting sometimes, but not enough to be stressful. School makes her feel normal, makes her feel like _Jane_ , somebody who grew up with a family, somebody who knows all about life outside a lab and had a happy childhood and has to touch things if she wants to move them. The person Eleven could have been. The only thing that would make it better, she thinks wistfully, would be being allowed to keep Hop’s last name.

Homework helps her carry that feeling home with her, which is why she sees it more like a gift than a chore.

“I just want to wait a year or two, Mom,” Jonathan is saying a little heatedly. Jane blinks, feeling a little bad for letting her attention wander, but it looks like this conversation is turning into one she’s heard before. Joyce’s insistence that Jonathan use his scholarship and go to Ohio State after he graduates versus his desire to take a gap year and work full time to help support the family. Jane doesn’t feel like she knows enough about what college is for to have a very strong opinion, but she’s inclined to agree with Jonathan. He can always go to college later; it’ll only be a little while before she and Will can legally start working enough hours to start making decent money, and then Jonathan leaving won’t be a problem. She’s pretty sure Will is turning fifteen in a week or so.

“I’m telling you, I think I’m gonna get this manager position,” Joyce argues, waving her fork. “I’ve been working hard, and my boss is being _really_ nice, in a surprisingly non-creepy way – ”

“But it’s not a sure thing,” Jonathan cuts in. “And you deserve it, really you do, but that’s not a guarantee. And even if you are promoted, how do you know everything will work out? If you’re the only person supporting everybody, it all falls on you. If anything goes wrong, if maybe you get fired and I’m not here – ”

“We’ll be fine,” interjects Will placatingly.

“I won’t have you putting your life on hold over this,” Joyce says flatly. “I know you. If you take one year off it’ll turn into two, then three. You are _going_ to college.”

“And if anything does happen, you can just come home,” adds Will.

“Will, you don’t just _leave_ college – I don’t think you understand how – ”

“I understand fine! You’re just being stubborn. I really think you should go.”

Jane scoots her chair out slightly, making a loud squeak that draws the Byers’ attention.

“Sorry,” she says, a little awkwardly. “Um, thanks for dinner, Joyce.”

“Of course, sweetie,” Joyce says with a smile that’s a little strained, but Jane can still see the sincere affection in her eyes. “Sorry you’re having to listen to all this.”

Jane shakes her head. “That’s okay. Can I be excused, though? I want to finish up on some things before bed.”

Joyce nods and murmurs assent, and Jane briefly makes eye contact with Jonathan and Will to let them know she’s not upset before taking her plate into the kitchen and cleaning up.

~+~

Jane works through algebra problems three chapters ahead of her classmates late into the night. She likes what she’s doing in her other classes too, but there’s something about the numbers and symbols and the way everything turns out just right that she finds calming, and she’s felt oddly anxious today. _Breathe. Sunflower. Three to the right, four to the left. 450. Rainbow._ Working on her garden helped a little, too, but she didn’t get as many of the weeds as she wanted.

She misses Hopper. It’s hard not to imagine what things would have been like if he’d always been her dad.

Her pencil taps on the paper, and she realizes her attention is wandering again. Just three more problems, and then she’ll go to bed, Jane tells herself. She’s in the middle of graphing a set of equations when she feels her eyes starting to close.

_Mike is laughing at something she said. “I’m sorry,” she says, meaning the thing about not calling, and he says it’s fine and he gets it. His hair is longer, she notices, and she mimes cutting it, which makes him laugh again._

_“So you’re going by Jane now?” he asks interestedly, and she feels a little embarrassed._

_“Oh – you don’t have to – ”_

_“No, I like it. It’s a nice name.” Mike smiles._

_“I think El was way cooler,” says Mad Max, who’s there too, with a sniff. But when Jane looks at her she grins. “You’re totally right that he needs to cut his hair. It looks hilarious.” She and Jane giggle for a minute._

Jane feels a twinge in the back of her neck and swims in and out of the dream for a second, vaguely aware that she’s uncomfortable with her head lying on her desk like this, before falling back into sleep.

_It feels familiar somehow, the smell. The strange difficulty she has trying to breathe, as if the air is saturated with something toxic. Every sensation leaves her more and more confused and disoriented. It’s dark, and cold, and she can just barely make out some shapes in front of her in the blackness, but her vision is so blurry that she still can’t tell what they are. She doesn’t know where she is, but she knows it’s bad here. This must be where the bad people go. She tries to look down at her hands, but they don’t look like they should._

_She’s in pain, but it’s hard to pinpoint where it’s coming from exactly._

She wakes up again, fully this time, and takes a second to be sure she was dreaming before opening her eyes. It’s still dark, but it’s not cold; she has the warmest room in the house. And her nose is squashed against her notebook, but she can breathe. The clearest image in her mind from the dream is one of blue eyes, which seems strange because she doesn’t remember seeing anybody else there with her. She tries to hold onto their shape, their color, but they vanish like fog, and Jane opens her eyes with a sigh.

Her graph is smudged. Resolving to do it over tomorrow, Jane reaches up to turn off her desk light and pads to the bathroom to brush her teeth, trying her best not to wake anyone. She doesn’t know what time it is and she’s not sure she wants to, but by the haggard look of her face in the mirror she guesses it’s probably past two.

It’s not anything new, this dream. She’s had it a few times before, and it’s weird and makes her a little uneasy, but when she mentioned it to Joyce the older woman explained that she’s probably still dealing with a lot of trauma from all the things that happened to her as a kid, and that it’s normal for things like that to be expressed through dreams. Cold, darkness, isolation, confusion, pain, vague panic. All things she’s very familiar with. Jane doesn’t like the dreams, but she does understand them, and she tells herself they don’t bother her as much as they used to.

Jane drifts back to her room and crawls into bed, and is asleep again as soon as her head hits the pillow.

_God, it’s all her fault. Everything was her fault. She feels sick and lonely and she’s so tired of the dark and it hurts. It’s so dark here and so cold and she’s all alone and she can’t breathe sunflower three to the right four to the left 450 rainbow and I LIED TO HER IT WAS MY FAULT – I CAN’T SEE – I CAN’T BREATHE – WHERE AM I – AND WHY CAN’T I JUST DIE?_

She wakes up screaming, and doesn’t realize until after Joyce comes running in, and asks her what’s wrong, and runs back out to get tissues, that her nose is bleeding for the first time in six months.


	2. Chapter 2

Jane likes Mondays. She sort of pretends she doesn’t most of the time, because most people don’t like Mondays. But she usually has to hide that she’s happy to be getting up early and getting her things together and heading off to school, where she can be Normal Jane for a whole day and not have to think about anything.

This Monday she doesn’t have to pretend.

She insisted on going to school despite Joyce’s doubts, hoping it would make her feel better, but she just can’t get herself together enough to focus on anything, and people are starting to notice.

“Are you all right, Jane?” asks her teacher in a concerned tone as Jane is leaving biology class. Jane can’t even meet her eyes as she chokes out a “yeah” and hurries off before the woman can press her. It’s lunchtime, but Jane flees to the bathroom, where she can sit by herself and at least have a modicum of peace for the next thirty minutes.

Her head is pounding, her thoughts swimming with borrowed emotions from her dream and her own bewilderment and worry. Her powers are _gone._ She tried again to use them this morning, after Joyce finally left her alone, and nothing happened. But – Jane closes her eyes for a minute and concentrates, feeling for them. She thinks she still feels _something_ in the place where they should be. Something that she has no power over, but that’s still causing her pain. Like a phantom limb. Maybe that’s why she keeps trying to use them, even though she knows they won’t work.

The worst thing is that her mind still can’t seem to tell the difference between her dream, whatever it was, and reality. When she woke up she felt the same as in the dream: alone, miserable, disoriented, hurting. _Guilty_ , even though she doesn’t know for what. She even thought she felt cold, although she could tell at the same time that her room was warm. Every sensation was unpleasant and overstimulating, every light too bright, every sound twice as loud as it should be. She _still_ feels it. For a horrified moment she thinks she might somehow be possessed by the Mindflayer, like Will was, but that wouldn’t make sense, and the whole experience doesn’t quite match up to how she knows that’s supposed to feel. She remembers what that was like; she saw it, very clearly, inside Billy.

For whatever reason, the thought of _him_ makes her feel even worse, makes her head pound harder and makes feel her so isolated and scared that she almost feels sick. She hasn’t thought of him often in the past months, but she’s pretty sure the few times he’s entered her thoughts before, it hasn’t been anywhere near this bad. It’s just that it’s hard to know how to feel about someone like Billy – someone who was so awful but so shaped by his own mistreatment, whose words and actions weren’t his own for most of the time she knew him, who had been performing a façade for most of his young life already because happiness felt so far out of reach. Who sacrificed himself to save her. The thought of him _hurts_ , and she knows some of it’s a holdover from the dream, but not all of it is.

Jane drops her head into her hands and sobs.

~+~

She comes out of the bathroom a half hour later with red, puffy eyes and goes through the rest of her day in a haze. Crying didn’t really make her feel any better, but it did at least make her numb enough to be functional. Jonathan finds her by the band room after eighth period – along with Will, she notes in dull surprise – and the three of them walk home together. Will and Jonathan chat quietly about music while Jane trudges along in silence, and it at least helps take her mind off everything.

It looks mostly the same here as it did back in Indiana. A lot of trees. Houses not too close to each other. All of it blurs together as Jane stares with unfocused eyes down the street, and she can almost pretend she’s back in Hawkins.

It’s funny, because Jane doesn’t _want_ to be back in Hawkins. The thought of her old town (hometown?) just reminds her of everything she’s lost, and everything she never had. Like _normal._

The ghosts are coming up in front of her eyes today anyway. Today, more than anything, more than the pain and the cold and the lump in her throat and the sharp bite in her chest of emotions that aren’t hers, Jane feels haunted. By Hopper, by Brenner. By her friends, who are still alive but feel frozen in her mind like wraiths, when she knows they’re still growing and changing back in Indiana without her. And by Billy – Billy, who was like one of her weeds, only knowing how to take, but also only trying to survive.

By the time they reach home, she’s crying silently. Her head is killing her; for some reason, it’s gotten worse every time Billy’s crossed her mind, which of course is just making her think of him more.

Something touches her arm, and Jane flinches and turns, squinting against the too-bright sunlight and the vivid color of the grassy lawn. It’s Jonathan.

“It’s too loud,” whimpers Jane without meaning to, without even really knowing what she’s saying. “Hurts.”

“Come on,” Jonathan says gently. “I know what you need.” He unlocks the door and heads upstairs, and Will takes Jane’s elbow and guides her up after him. They step into Jonathan’s room; he’s fiddling with the record player. Will sits on the bed, and Jane, more used to hard surfaces, opts for the floor.

“Just focus on the sound,” says Jonathan, “and try and keep your mind off everything else.”

After a few moments soft music comes streaming out of the player and fills the room. The man’s voice is hard for Jane to make out at first, as if the song is playing underwater, but she listens anyway and after a minute the haze in her brain fades and the song becomes clearer. He has a pretty voice.

“ _Haven’t had a dream in a long time, see, the life I’ve had could make a good man bad...”_

Jane’s eyes slide closed. Jonathan turns the volume up a little, and she keeps listening. She has no idea how he knew this would help, but it’s… nice.

The song ends too quickly, though, and Jane’s eyes snap open. “More?” she requests. Jonathan smiles and picks a different record. She closes her eyes again.

This one’s louder, more energetic, but clearly the same band. It’s harder for Jane to understand the lyrics because of how the sound is layered, but they’re odd and a little funny, she thinks. Her fingers tap a little in time to the drums.

“ _The devil will find work for idle hands to do… I stole and I lied, and why? Because you asked me to…”_

“Who are they?” she whispers.

“They’re called The Smiths,” says Will from over on the bed. “They’re pretty good, huh?”

“ _Pretty_ good?” repeats Jonathan, mock-incredulously.

“I still think The Clash are cooler,” states Will. Jane cracks open an eye and looks at Jonathan, expecting him to look annoyed, but he and Will are smiling at each other.

“The… Clash?” tries Jane. Will and Jonathan exchange a glance and then both turn to look at her, still grinning.

Two minutes later, and after a little yelling as Will and Jonathan hunted for the right record, Jane and her two adoptive brothers are singing along to The Clash. She’s only figured out a couple of the lyrics, but Jonathan tells her it’s punk music, so it doesn’t matter if you know the lyrics or even if you can really sing. Will has gotten up and is miming playing the guitar and doing a little dance, trying to make Jane laugh, and it’s kind of working.

“ _This indecision’s buggin’ me,_ ” sings Will, pointing at her and then dropping theatrically to his knees. “ _If you don’t want me, set me free!_ ” Jane snorts at him. Jonathan is shouting the backup singer’s lines, even though they’re in a language he clearly doesn’t know.

“ _Should I stay or should I go_ ,” she sings back at them, completely out of time with the song, and probably also off key.

“No!” Will laughs, swatting at her. “Not yet! Come _on_ , Jane, you’re not even trying, here!”

“I am trying!” she protests, suppressing an incriminating giggle that would suggest otherwise.

“Come on! _Don’t you know which clothes even fit me,_ ” he chants, doing a little shimmy.

“ _¿Sabes que ropa me queda_?” adds Jonathan, in what even Jane can tell is a really bad accent. She starts laughing, and finds she can’t seem to stop.

After a minute she realizes it’s quiet; Jonathan’s turned off the music and he and Will aren’t talking or singing anymore. “What’s wrong?” Jane gasps, and then it hits her that at some point, her laughter turned into sobs, and she lets out an unhappy little “oh.” The crying isn’t really stopping either, and it’s all rushing back – the cold, the confusion, the loneliness, the guilt. The pain. “It’s hurting again,” she explains in a tiny voice, feeling like a burden.

“Okay,” says Will steadily, kneeling in front of her on the floor. “Let’s try this. My mom has bad anxiety, and she gets panic attacks sometimes. Since we got here, some of her friends have told her she should try going to therapy, and we can sort of afford it now, so she’s been to a couple sessions. She showed me what the guy taught her, about how to breathe to make your body calm down, and then it helps your brain too. Okay?” Jane looks over at Jonathan, who nods reassuringly.

“Okay,” says Jane.

Will smiles. “Okay. Just close your eyes and focus. Imagine you’re in a calm and happy place, somewhere you feel safe.”

“Here is fine,” mumbles Jane unthinkingly, but she obediently closes her eyes anyway.

Will is quiet for a second. “Okay,” he says again. “Now I want you to inhale, and count real slowly as you do it. _One-two-three-four._ And then do it again as you exhale, _one-two-three-four_. Alright? Keep going. I’ll tell you when to stop.”

Jane breathes along with his counting, and then does it herself. She feels like there’s a cold film covering her skin; maybe she’s just sweating. _In, one-two-three-four. Out, one-two-three-four._ Her back straightens, and it almost feels like it used to, when she would close her eyes and look for somebody. But – her eyelids flicker – there’s no blindfold. If she opens her eyes, she’ll see Will and Jonathan.

 _One-two-three-four. One-two-three-four._ Even just breathing is harder than she thought it would be. Her chest is tight; the air feels too thick, like she’s breathing in smoke, or dust. _One-two-three-four-to-the-left-450 – No,_ Jane tells herself, forcing the pattern away, her breath hitching. She tries again. _One-two-three-four. One-two-three-four._

This can’t be right; she’s feeling worse, the cold intensifying, the pain deepening. The awful emotions are resonating in her head like a scream, and Jane has to make an effort to stop herself from responding in kind. She forces herself to keep breathing. _One-two-three-four. One-two-three-four._ She feels like she’s going to be sick. The headache is so bad even her teeth are hurting now. It almost feels like her skull is vibrating from the intensity of the pain. _One-two-three-four. One-two-three-four. One-two-three –_

The sensations, all of them, suddenly fall away. Jane takes a moment to appreciate the feeling of relief, then opens her eyes, unconsciously wiping at her nose. She freezes halfway through the action, her hand hovering in her peripheral vision, streaked with red.

Those feelings _weren’t_ hers.

They belong to the eighteen-year-old boy who’s lying sprawled, pallid and filthy, on what should be – but isn’t – Jonathan’s floor.

“ _Billy_ ,” Jane chokes.

His head jerks; his hand twitches. After an unsettlingly long moment of his eyes tracking aimlessly near her face, they finally focus, and his brow furrows. He opens his mouth, but it’s another stretched and breathless instant before any sound comes out.

“El?” he whispers, voice pitifully hoarse. She has no idea if it’s because he hasn’t spoken in a while or if it’s because he’s been screaming. Both thoughts are abhorrent.

“Jane,” she corrects mindlessly, tonelessly. Her eyes are wide and full of tears. “I’ve been going by Jane.”

“J- _ane_?” Billy croaks. He blinks his ocean blue eyes, the exact color she remembers, and seems to consider this for a moment. Then his mouth cracks into a grimacing expression that almost approximates a smile. “Suits you.”

She opens her mouth, then closes it, tamping down the urge to reprimand him for wasting his – voice, strength, _whatever,_ to say something so _stupid._ More tears roll down, and Jane scrubs at them impatiently.

“Billy, do you know where you are?” she asks, trying to sound calm, but probably failing miserably.

“No,” he says, the corners of his mouth turning down. A horrible cough rips from his mouth, wracking his entire frame, followed by a succession of them. Jane just watches, horrified. She thinks she sees him spit out blood, but it’s so dark where he is – where they are? – that she isn’t sure. “It’s bad here,” he gasps when the coughs have subsided, then he looks around and emphasizes. “ _Real_ bad, El,” then he corrects himself, “Jane.”

“Can you describe it to me?” Jane tries desperately. “What it looks like?” Billy shakes his head slowly, the most minute of movements.

“Too dark,” he rasps, coughing again. “But it’s co-… cold.” He squints at her, gaze intensifying briefly. “It’s good… to see you,” he manages, slowly, then very softly, “Jane.” Jane bites down hard on her lip to keep in the sob that’s building up in her throat. His eyes are so blue. An oasis in the barren wasteland of the Upside Down, where he’s been imprisoned for who knows how long. Months.

Jane tries to smile back at him, fails, then reaches for his hand, numbly shocked when she makes contact. His eyes widen; he’s shocked, too. “I’m gonna help you,” she tells him in a rush. “I’ll come get you, okay?” It’s another instant before she really understands what she just promised, remembers that she has no powers, no access to the Upside Down, where he unquestionably is. But she _feels_ what it’s like for him there. She can’t just leave him.

And she owes him.

Billy just stares at her for a minute as she strokes his hand with her fingers, then he pulls away. “Come soon,” he whispers. But she can tell, she can _feel_ , that he doesn’t believe her.

“I will,” Jane insists, looking into his eyes, not sure if she’s trying to convince him, or to convince herself. “I will. I promise.”

And then he’s gone, and Jonathan’s right in front of her, shaking her shoulders. “Jane?” he’s saying, very loudly.

“I’m fine,” she says, pushing him away lightly. “I’m fine. I just – I know what was happening now.”

“What?” asks Will urgently. “Was it the Mindflayer?”

She glances at him, a little surprised, but it makes sense that his mind would have gone there too. “No. It’s Billy.”

“Wait, what?” says Jonathan slowly. “Is Billy…”

“Alive,” Jane interjects, trying to hide the tremble in her voice, and gives a jerky nod. “Yeah. And he – he’s trapped in the Upside Down, I think. I guess when my powers went away, I kept some sort of…” Jane follows the line of thought to its conclusion, and stops. “Hang on.” She pauses for another long moment, then says, “There’s something I want to try.”

She reaches for the place where her power should be, and instead of grasping for it, trying to use it, she just… lets it be. She can still sense Billy, his pain and fear, and when she feels for him he responds, just slightly. A little hello. But there’s someone else she can sense, too. Jane reaches, and waits.

 _Breathe. Sunflower. Three to the right, four to the left. 450. Rainbow._ The words shine into her mind like light through a prism, filled with love.

_Mom._

Jane opens her eyes again and takes an unsteady breath.

“I think it’s time,” she says, “to call home.”


End file.
